Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SPOHB SPOHR 641
setting a libretto on the same story ; but when
he heard that Weber had treated the subject, he
gave it up. During Spohr's stay at Dresden,
Weber received an otter of the post of Hofcapellmeister
to the Elector of Hesse-Cassel ; but being
unwilling to leave Dresden, he declined, at the
same time strongly recommending Spohr, who
soon after was offered the appointment for life
under the most favourable conditions.
On New
Year's Day, 1822, he entered on his duties at
Cassel, where he remained for the rest of his life.
He had no diiBculty in gaining at once the respect
and obedience of band and singers, and
soon succeeded in procuring a more than local
reputation for their performances. Meanwhile
he had finished his 'Jessonda,' which soon made
the round of all the opera-houses in Germany,
with great and well-deserved success. It must
be regarded as the culminating point of Spohr's
activity as a composer. At Leipzig and Berlin,
where he himself conducted the first performances,
it was received with an enthusiasm little
inferior to that roused a few years before by the
'Freischiitz.' In the winter of 1824 he passed
some time in Berlin, and renewed and cemented
the friendship with Felix Mendelssohn and the
members of his family, which had been begun
when they visited him at Cassel in 1882. In
1826 he conducted the Rhenish Festival at
Diisseldorf, when his oratorio The ' Last Judgment'
(Die letztenDinge) was performed (see vol.
ii. p. 6486). It pleased so much that it was
repeated a few days later in aid of the Greek Insurgents.
His next great work was the opera
'Ketro von Abano,' which however, like his
next operas, Der ' Berggeist ' and Der Alchymist,'
had but a temporary success. In 1831
'
he finished his great Violin School, which has
ever since its publication maintained the place
of a standard work, and which contains, both
in text and exercises, a vast amount of extremely
interesting and useful material. At the same
time, it cannot be denied that it reflects somewhat
exclusively Spohr's peculiar style of playing
and is therefore of especial value for the study
of his own violin-compositions. It is also true
that its elementary part is of less practical value
from the fact that the author himself had never
taught beginners, and so had no personal experience
in that respect.
The political disturbances of 1832 caused a
prolonged interruption of the opera performances
at Cassel. Spohr, incensed by the petty despotism
of the Elector, proved himself at this time,
and still more during the revolutionary period
of 1848 and 1849, a strong Radical, incurring
thereby his employer's displeasure, and causing
him innumerable annoyances. However he made
good use of the interruption to his official duties,
by writing his Symphony Die Weihe der Tone'
'
(The Consecration of Sound, No. 4, op. 86),
which was produced at Cassel in 1 832. During
the next year, which was saddened by the death
VOL. rv
of his wife in 1834, he composed the oratorio
'
Des Heiland's letzte Stunden ' (Calvary), on a
Ubretto which Rochlitz had offered to Mendelssohn,
but which the latter, being then engaged
on 'St. Paul,' had declined. Spohr's
oratorio was first performed at Cassel on Good
Friday, 1835. [In 1836 he married Marianne
Pfeiffer, a pianist, who survived him, dying at
Cassel, Jan. 4, 1892.] In 1839 he paid his
second visit to England, where meanwhile his
music had attained great popularity. He had
received an invitation to produce his Calvary
'
at the Norwich Festival, and in spite of the
opposition offered to the work by some of the
clergy on account of its libretto, his reception
appears to have surpassed in enthusiasm anything
he had before experienced. It was a real
success, and Spohr for the rest of his life refers
to it as the greatest of his triumphs. Soon after
his return to Cassel he received from Professor
Edward Taylor the libretto of another oratorio,
'
The Fall of Babylon, ' with a request that he
would compose it for the Norwich Festival of
1842. [For the circumstance of the Norwich
Festival performances, see Annals of the Norfolk
and Norvnch Musical Festivals, by E. H. Legge
and W. E. HanseU, 1896.] In 1840 he
conducted the Festival at Aix - la - Chapelle.
Two years later he brought out at Cassel Wagner's
'Der Fliegende Hollander." That Spohr,
who, in the case of Beethoven and Weber, exhibited
such inability to appreciate novelty
and who at bottom was a conservative of conservatives
in music—should have been the very
first musician of eminence to interest himself
in Wagner's talent is a curious fact not easily
explained. To some extent his predilection for
experiments in music—such as he showed in
his 'Weihe der Tone,' his Symphony for two
orchestras, the Historic Symphony, the Quartet-
Concertan te and someotherthings—may account
for it ; while his long familiarity with the stage
had doubtless sharpened his perception for dramatic
effect, and thus enabled him to recognise
Wagner's eminently dramatic genius. But there
was in Spohr, both as man and as artist, a
curious mixture of the ultra-Conservative, nay
almost Philistine element, and of the Radical
spirit.
To the great disappointment of himself and
his English friends, he was unable to conduct
the ' Fall of Babylon ' at Norwich, since the
Elector refused the necessary leave of absence.
Even a monster petition from his English admirers
and a special request from Lord Aberdeen,
then at the head of the Government, to the
Elector, had not the desired result. The oratorio,
however, was performed with the greatest
success, and Spohr had to be satisfied with the
reports of his triumph, which poured in from
many quarters. On the first day of his summer
vacation, he started for England, and soon after
his arrival in London conducted a performance
2 T